Practice Makes Perfect
by Liberty Roth
Summary: Spoilers. Zevran/fem. Warden. The seven incarnations that the Antivan and his love had to go through to finally fall together in the perfect way.


**Title: **Practice Makes Perfect  
**Rating: **T  
**Fandom: **Dragon Age: Origins  
**Pairings: **Zevran/any female Warden  
**Spoilers: **Yes, for the end of the game.  
**Summary: **Spoilers. Zevran/fem. Warden. The seven incarnations that the Antivan and his love had to go through to finally fall together in the perfect way.

For some reason, my brain likes to come up with ideas _after _I've turned my laptop off and have gone to bed. I swear. Every time I go to brush my teeth and wash my face before bed, an idea pops up in my head. I have a magical bathroom, you guys – it gives ideas! So I've been waiting to write this and I hope I do it justice to my mind's version of it.

* * *

The first time, they are young and small. Small enough to know that they want to be an adventurer someday and ride griffons, but not big enough to know just what they're asking for. They're friends and they like to play with daggers and plan their future adventures together.

But her father only sees dresses, ribbons, and a good marriage for her. When they're teenagers and are starting to get flustered around each other, her father gets his way. She is ripped away from him for a marriage. Far, far away to a large city. For a while he dreams about what he would do if he was there in the city with her; he sees white horses and charging and noble music playing as he sweeps her off of her feet.

It doesn't happen.

He passes her in the city many years later, though neither of them recognize what the other has become. She, a proud and resourceful woman with curves and enough wit to use her feminine wiles smartly and he… he is a man who loves the bottle a bit too much and gets into scraps for wailing about how he was going to be an adventurer.

He thinks of her sometimes and these thoughts mostly consist of _why couldn't your father let you fight? _They could have gone off and had adventures. But she was a girl and her gender had ruined it.

--

The next time there is no pesky father to cause trouble. There is a mother, though, but he knows that she is more sympathetic to her daughter's case. Her mother encourages her to fight, bringing in a retired man who claims he fought in the first Blight to train her strong and beautiful daughter.

And even though he _knows_ he should be scrubbing floors like he was being paid to do, he can't keep his eyes off of her. She is deadly and strong and beautiful and he fancies things that are strong and beautiful. She can feel his eyes on her as she drives a dagger into a wooden foe. It is wrong for her to appreciate his eyes on her. But it is more wrong for her to want to appreciate his hands on her.

They enter her room, fumbling and clumsy and sweet. With his muddy trousers and calloused hands, it doesn't make sense for her to like him. He is a servant in her house and they _should not be doing what they are doing. _There should be no gasping or curling or sighing. But there is. He smiles anyway as they slowly fall in foolish love.

He isn't smiling as he is fired for what he has done to her. And he doesn't smile when the guards have to pull him away from her as he desperately clutches at her for reassurance. He _knows _he shouldn't have gotten involved and that knowledge it what makes it the hardest as he is hauled into the street.

--

He's learned not to feel. The next time there are no feelings to make it complicated. It is pure sex. Their fling is small and meaningless – he is married to a harpy and she is ten years younger than he. But they both find something they didn't even realize they were looking for and it frightens them into stopping their affair.

--

The fourth time, he is uncertain. Their small town is a swirl of success and love and hope. Everyone seems to find their niche perfectly. Even she has found where she belongs – a small but beautiful jewelry shop, where she is in charge of the front room while her father pours molten metal into molds in the back room. He envies her. He doesn't seem to be good at anything – and, trust him, he has tried. Part of him thinks he could be good at hunting, if it didn't bore him so. Animals were stupid and most of them were predictable. Rabbits and deer weren't a challenge to bring down – they weren't clever and they weren't fast enough to evade him.

He wasn't tall enough or broad enough; he was skinny and slim and though he was fit, there was no way he could be able to be any kind of smith or do any heavy labor for the rest of his life.

One day he sighs as he goes into her shop, hoping for some sympathy from her. Instead, she rolls her eyes at him, pressing something into his hand. It is a pair of earrings. Simple, but beautiful, and most importantly – valuable. She tells him to sell them and to get a ride to a bigger city, where he could find what he was meant to do.

He does just that – selling one immediately. He keeps the second for sentimental value and occasionally glances down at it as he continues his search for his calling. A lot of his time in between craft hunting is spent thinking of her. It was nice of her to do this for him, an almost stranger… but he can't help but think that something is off. The boy is supposed to give the girl jewelry, not the other way around.

--

The slightness of form stays for their fifth try. He gains pointy elven ears. This time, she is a visitor to their small home in the alienage. A potion maker, someone said, which was strange. He suspects she uses magic to make the things she does, but he doesn't say anything to her about it. He only watches her walk back and forth and back and forth from her small cart to their local shop, carrying in armful after armful.

She walks in Antivan boots. He cannot help but notice what a nice walk it is, with swaying hips and deliciously seductive lips.

--

The next time, he's shed the alienage background but kept the dirty thoughts. She's a prostitute and a damn good one at that… he finds himself coming back to her, begging her to take any sort of payment so that he can spend the night with her again. He makes offers off of the top of his head – he has a pony outside the city and it's small and sort of slow but _please please I really need this… I really need you tonight, you are the best._

But she's angry and she waves her hand at him, wanting him to leave so she can actually make some money. "No," she tells him, catching something glimmery out of the corner of her eye. A big, brawny fellow is wearing a single gold hoop through one of his massive ears. The perfect way to get the annoying, perverse man to go away. "I want that earring. Get it and you can stay. You'd better just go home because-"

But she doesn't get to finish her sentence because he is already launching himself at the man. As fist after fist connects with his face, making it swell and change colors, he repeats something inside of his head like a mantra. _Anything. Anything. Anything._ When the man finally growls and exits the brothel, he feels triumphant.

Later, she strokes his hair away from his face as they pause for a moment in their writhing and arching and moans. His eyes travel down to the earring that she has hung on a flimsy wool string on her bare neck. A funny feeling rises up in his slight form, like he has done something right where he had failed before.

--

The seventh time, it is perfect in every way. It is also _wrong_ in every way. She is a Grey Warden and... and he is the son of a whore who came from Antiva with a gift of death for her. Instead of killing him, like he would have if their roles had been reversed, she spares him. He can't imagine _why _she would do such a thing, but he doesn't question it as he helps her in battles and wraps bandages around her injuries for her.

Later, as he falls into her bed with her, he still can't wrap his head around why she would accept her would-be assassin into her tent. Still. He wasn't going to question it… he was good at taking pleasures where they appeared.

What he wasn't good at was accepting anything _more_ than pleasure. So when he falls in love with her and finds himself protectively drifting toward her in battles, he's afraid. He is a small boy again, shaking as he fights for his life among future Crows. Hairs prickle on the back of his neck as he offers her an earring that he never thought he would willingly give to anyone.

She accepts it. And suddenly, he feels relief, like he's done this many times and this is the first time it has worked out perfectly. His mouth meets hers, his heart pounds in his chest, and he feels complete for the first time in a very, very long time.


End file.
